THE SHOP

Audio portrait of a place where men drink and women dream

By Viktoras Jakovlevas & Annick Lesage

Made in cooperation with EBU Master School on Radio Features

Final editing by Apollo Sillen, VRT.

Recorded in Lithuania. Premiered October 28, 2008, on Lithuanian Radio.

Duration: 28 min

SYNOPSIS

A shop in a village is not only a place where you buy things, but also a unique social space; a world that is both small and universal at the same time. Viktoras Jakovlevas went to one local store and spent several weeks recording life there.

Due to the lack of pupils, the local school was closed and the shop became the only public place in the village. It is there that you can gather the news, discuss life and meet the neighbours.

Through colourful characters, a contemporary Lithuanian village is shown: open-hearted, a bit comic, while at the same time facing a problem of alcoholism.

### START OF FEATURE ###

Valerija: (Sharpening the scythe) In summertime, everybody is gonna be lying around here, drinking beer. This is their leisure area. Everybody drinks beer here in summer, all tumbled down here… I collect so many bottles. (sniffs) Haha. Here, news comes first. When you’re here, you’ll soon find out who died, who was born, who died… Everything. Oh!... I’m tired.

(Birds, a car passes by)

If you take the 159th road from Užventis to the north, the direction of Kuršėnai, you can’t miss this place. A relatively small one-storey building richly covered with green tin, stands right by the road. Above its windows there is a sign saying “The Shop”. On one side you can see a bus stop, where buses stop twice a day, while on the other you can see a small green area with a few trees. The shop is right by the crossing where the street, which leads you up the village, hits the main road.

(Doors creaking, music from the radio set, steps)

Stankevičius: Have you got loads to carry? Need any help?

Virginija: No, there’s just one left and that’ll be all. Thanks, you’re very kind.

Stankevičius: That’s all?

Virginija: Just this one…

Food and cigarettes, various domestic goods, garden equipment and seeds, salt for cows, nails, earrings and other kinds of jewellery, even a microwave, a waterpipe, a small TV set and a broken laptop, which will later be bought by an IT specialist passing by – you’d be better off asking what they don’t sell here.

Virginija: In the village we sell everything. Of course, the most important item in our shop is bread, also meat products... and drinks... alcoholic drinks, I have to say. You really have to keep in mind – no need to hide it – that alcohol plays a very big role in the village.

The shop is also the place where people get the news, do business, where they can meet up if they haven’t seen somebody for a long time.... or to simply get aquainted.

Stankevičius: Stankevičius Algirdas Pijus. You need my father's name? One of the Stankevičiai, Algis, lives here, another Stankevičius is there – there’re just loads of them. What is the most common surname in Lithuania? Kazlauskai. We Stankevičiai get the second place.

Donatas: Hi.
Stankevičius: Hello hello Donatėlis.
Donatas: Long time... I hardly recognize you anymore.
Dweller: Ahem ha ha.

Stankevičius: Hello hello.

You would most likely call Stankevičius a gentleman: he’s always wearing a tweed jacket and a hat, and his trousers are always neatly tucked into his rubber shoes; he would always shake your hand, and joke around with women.

Stankevičius:  In short, I won’t lie but go straight to the truth. I will state the facts of my life: I was born in the times of Smetona, survived the wars, survived the Soviet times. Now I live in independent times. I experienced everything in my own skin, and no one can tell me what to do... I was in my own skin, I saw it with my own eyes! As to what I can’t see, God decides… Others claim… There’s eternal substantiality, though it’s changing, too. What does a circle mean? Someone explain it to me! A circle means eternity. Why are the planets round? Because there’s a centrifugal force, all of the organisms move under the influence of the centrifugal magnetic law... I had finished nine grades, but because of Loreta, my daughter, I finished all eleven. I liked astronomy a lot, physics was interesting… Ha ha.

About the shop? When was it built? Donatas? You probably didn’t live here then? As for me, I was born here in this land, had a cabin near the river… Come visit me… Write it down: ‘Dokurniai village’. As it has vanished, I am now registered here in the Varputėnai village.

Donatas: Hey, ask the aunty.
Onutė: What is it?
Stankevičius: The shop... Nineteen sixty four or five?
Onutė: Five.
Donatas: Right, old dwellers know better...

Right right, I don’t even need to ask. I was born and raised here. I walked all of the little paths. It belonged to the state back then, in the Soviet times. It was a variety shop, and it remained as such. Now too... It’s a cooperative shop now. Not really state owned, not really private, but the cooperative manages it independently.

Ha ha. As I am a pensioner, I have no goat, no cow, no cat... Ha Ha, ahem. My lot is on the river bank… I catch some fish, so that shop is not really necessary... I like... I like fish a lot, potatoes, I like potatoes… I can do without bread, without white bread, without meat... (Spits) I buy some white bread from time to time, the precious white bread... Because when I eat brown bread, I have problems with waterbrash... I’m not ill, but brown bread has too much acid, so I buy white bread... Well, sometimes I buy some piece of sausage to enjoy myself. (Lights up a cigarette) I like beer...

Stankevičius: Listen... Antanas!
Antanas: Aha.
Stankevičius: I’ll come by!
Antanas: Right right. But a lot of time has passed since last spring.
Stankevičius: Antanėlis...
Another old man: Listen, mister, ask him to cover the roof, you toad.
Stankevičius: I need to go to Kaunas for some treatment. I’ll be back around the 15th...
Antanas: Of this month or next month?
Stankevičius: This month…
Antanas: I’ve been waiting from last year on, for more than a year now…
Stankevičius: Antanas, I was busy…
Antanas: Yeah, but you had promised me.
Stankevičius: But before working on that I had visited you, but you said it was still ages before the material would be ready and I couldn’t…
Another old man: (some idiom) Algis, if you are planning to shit, take a slash at the same time!

Stankevičius: Of course! We need to take advantage of our time. Time is money. Time is precious. I’m not gonna struggle for words, I don’t need to think a lot, I always know what to answer, just like that, immediately. Ha ha ha, so it is, so it is, ha ha ha. I don’t borrow somebody’s words.

(The shop, Stankevičius is buying something)

Stankevičius comes to the shop from another village, Dokurniai, in which he is the only dweller so far. Once twenty people lived there, but then the village died out, and Stankevičius Algirdas Pijus is the first one willing to reestablish it again. So far he lives, as he himself puts it, “in the dark ages”, because nobody will lay wires from the power station to his house.

Stankevičius: Ooo, so far I haven’t attracted any more dwellers. If only there were at least four inhabitants there… Because now if I want to go somewhere, there are no neighbours, nothing. The closest neighbour would be my brother in Laumakiai. And Laumakiai is already another village. There’s nothing closer, and it’s one and a half kilometers to go there… That’s how it is. All right, bye, good bye, ladies.

Virginija: Bye.

(Starts his motorcycle)

He comes with a fourstroke Zongshen motorcycle, usually in the morning. He’ll come round tomorrow as well. (Beeps twice) Or the day after tomorrow.

***

(The shop, the register, people buying things)

Virginija: And?
Woman: That would do it perhaps.
Virginija: 31 litas.
Man: Add two more...
Woman: Gosh! So much! Exactly 31?
Virginija: Yes, 31 litas. And why are you in such a hurry today, Stasiukas?
Man: Don’t even ask. Thanks for asking...

Virginija: You see? “Don’t ask!” I wanna know where you are rushing to.
Woman: Are you open till 8?
Virginija: Till 9.
Woman: That’s right; somebody told me it was 9 or 10.

Man: Give me a loaf of pre-cut white bread.
(closes the register)

Virginija is a shopkeeper, working in the shop for seven years now. To be more precise, she returned to the shop seven years ago, as she grew up in the house on the other side of the street, opposite the shop.

Virginija: Yes, my childhood and my youth went by in Varputėnai, and now... how shall I put it... my mature period is also partly spent in Varputėnai, because you see, it’s all about work… I spend most of my time in Varputėnai... It’s my home. It wasn’t planned for me to be anywhere else, and because it wasn’t, I would have probably ended up there (scoops garbage), just like everybody, like most of the people – abroad (spills the garbage).

To say that Virginija is just a shopkeeper would be wrong. She knows practically everyone in the village, so she always asks them how things are, how one deal or another was sorted out. If you come by, she will greet you with a smile and bright lips.

Virginija: So what happened? A cow kicked you? I haven’t heard anything about it yet... But you don’t look at all injured.

Woman: Hey hey... I’d show you, I even needed to scream.
Virginija: Go on!
Woman: There’s one bruise here, another one there...
Virginija: Come on, did it hit you so high? Or was it with a horn?
Woman: What do you mean a horn? Legs, of course…
Virginija: So high?
Woman: What do I know, I don’t know what’s gotten into them yesterday, I was just passing by... some madness.
Virginija: Tell them to give the cows some tranquillizers...
Woman: I took a stick, so they calmed down...

Virginija: To be honest, I can’t even imagine myself working anywhere else. I can’t do anything else but sell. That’s it, that’s the essence I suppose. Or maybe the circumstances just don’t force me to do anything else… If they did, then you could learn anything… I don’t know, you just dedicate yourself and that’s all, people can appreciate it all they want. You give away everything you can, and if somebody was to ask for more, I think, dear God, where will I take it from, there’s nothing left… No stock behind my back, which I could give to a person. Everything that can be given away already has been.… There’s just this feeling of love to people and that’s it. I can say it to every single customer: I love you. It’s just this feeling and I can’t help it.

Man with a spooky voice: I need to have a smoke, I can’t quit, and then my health... I don’t want that... Maybe give me the Kastytis brand.

Virginija: Just quit then. I’m not gonna give you any if you are trying to quit. No, no way.

Man with a spooky voice: Then give me St. George.
Virginija: The Ministry of Health and shopkeepers warn you: smoking kills.

Man with a spooky voice: I’ve been reading this for many years. When I started counting... For forty years now.

Virginija: This is how long you’ve been smoking? Your lungs must no longer be there.

Man with a spooky voice: But they are! And they aren’t so bad!

Stasiukas: Virga, give me a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches, quickly! Give me cigarettes, give me beer!

Virginija: Hold on, I’ll let the girls out first...

Stasiukas: Go on then, let them go...
Another drunkard: What do we do now, Stasiukas?
Stasiukas: Go to bed quickly!
Another drunkard: Hey you, listen, shall we take some vodka?

Stasiukas: No no no, I need to work tomorrow.
Another drunkard: Aren’t you working for the master?

Stasiukas: I don’t work anywhere, tomorrow is Sunday.

Another drunkard: But you are still working?

Stasiukas: I used to but not anymore...
Another drunkard: Did you resign? Run away?
Stasiukas: Who me? I’m not gonna work for free... Let me tell you something. Shall we have a beer?

Virginija: I sell alcohol as a commodity. Without thinking. Even though when you work in a village, you always observe things... There are people, men and women, who have changed within these seven years since I started working here. And the change is not so positive, I can tell you that much. But things are what they are, work is work, we are selling a product, we don’t intend to harm anybody. It happens a lot when customers, especially men who drink every so often, they feel it’s their duty to offer some for the shopkeeper – wine or champagne... You know, that’s how things are... Customers have an opinion about me in Varputėnai, they know you don’t offer it to the shopkeeper. I always say no. At work, to be honest, I have never even taken a sip. At work.

(Bottles in the fridge. The drunkard takes one).

Drunkard: When you need to recover, you can’t help it. Right, Virgel? I don’t know, she says! Jesus Christ... You gotta drink! Ouch... (burps)...

***
(A truck passes by)
Valius: Where are you coming back from?

Kid: From there.
Valius: From Šaukėnai? So you went to Šaukėnai.

And this is Valius. Or Uncle Valius, as kids call him in the village.

Valius: And where are you running, folks?
Woman: To buy ice-cream – tell him that.
Valius: Ice-cream, ice-cream. Not so bad when it’s cold.

They also call him Valiukas.

Valius: I’ll give you some chewing gum, I’ve got two in my pocket. Hold on.... Here, take it.

Kid: Thanks.
Valius: Wait, there must be another one somewhere. Take the last one.

Kid: Thanks.
Valius: Where would I put it? Where would I put it? He’s my friend, as it were... I’m so good with kids!

(Opens the bottle)

Valius: Careful! Don’t slip! I’m gonna down the whole bottle now, ha ha ha.

Valius is a person who – as they say – helps you if you ask him for a favour. A favour here means minor or larger tasks which you either don’t want to do yourself, or don’t have time for, or simply don’t know how to do.

Valius: (drinks) Well, people ask me for things, so I reap the roadside areas, yards, I make it all clean, where they ask, this is what I do... I’ve got loads of things to do – that much! Fantastic. (a car passes by) And my main duties... Hold on... This is my... I’ve got loads of old ladies: Kazimerienė, and then this one, Sutkienė, Selenienė Irena, there’s also Doctor Jonas, though he’s not an old lady. Stasiulelis Sutkus, Kontautienė, Kontautuka, what is she called... I forget the last name... Milčienė, Stankevičienė, my brother Vytauts... And Skirmants from Šilkalniai. So many I have to go around... Ten people. And the eleventh one, Sasnauskienė. That’s how many there are!

Thin, a bit bent forward, with a small light moustache and a baseball cap, always running from one place to another with his big steps – so is Valius. The worst thing is, he says, that he does not get public works to do.

Valius: I have my disability group. Epilepsy. ( a car passes by) There’s a special group. Mine’s the third one. Three hundred ruobles... Litas, I mean... I can’t go over three hundred, or else I won’t get food from the Red Cross. I’ve got so much work here, I won’t manage... After I get this money from the group, I’ll go to Tryškiai, to take down the forest... They’ll give me a go with ‘Husquarna’ – I know how to use all of them: Jonser, Jupiter, Husquarna and some other kind of chainsaw - I know all of them. We’ll clean the forest clear – they could pick mushrooms all over the place afterwards, without any stumbling whatsoever. I’ve got things to do in the forest.

(Takes a big gulp) Look! Whipsnake... this beer is very strong, 8.2 per cent. Ha ha ha. I don’t drink any other kind – anything weaker just tastes like piss. Ha ha. There used to be this one of 9.5, like dynamite. I changed the dynamite into this one, 8.2 (burps). Wait, I tried the one of 11 per cent, very thick. Two glasses and everything goes green. I can’t remember what it’s called, but somebody poured it for me, my eyes were exploding, I said, so I’m not gonna touch it again. If your eyes are turning green after two glasses, that’s it. I can’t deal with it (drinks). Work is done (in Russian).

Tomorrow perhaps beer is OUT. Tomorrow I’m gonna need to do some work in the garden, so drinking is OUT. You know, when you are drunk... Though sometimes it’s not so bad, but water is better. But the main one is not that hooligan whipsnake beer but coffee, with grounds. You down one litre and your energy is... OK, as I like to say – OK.

(Birds, steps by the shop)

Valius: I’m gonna take the bottle back.

(enters the shop)

Valius: I brought the bottles. Thanks for the beer.
Virginija: You’re welcome.
Valius: I’m gonna stay this way all the time. Ha ha. I’m always gonna say thank you for beer.
Valerija: That’s the right approach, well done.
Valius: That’s my style. Thanks.

Valerija: By the way Valiukas, when are you going to come take the boxes?
Valius: Well, hold on, I’ll try and do it tomorrow.

Valerija: I’ve got plenty.
Valius: Can’t do morning, gonna do some weeding in the morning. What is it there? One and a half beds left… That’s what I need to do.

Valerija: How do you keep on like that, running around everywhere?
Valius: What? I’m not sure where my good health comes from...
Valerija: God loves you.
Valius: I don’t know.
Virginija: It’s five o’clock.
Valius: At 6 I need to be at Maryte’s to collect my young cow. So it looks like I still have half an hour. I’d better go to the Doctor; and about these other things – I’ll do as much as I can.

***

(rinses the rag)

Valerija: Ha ha ha, these are the lakes of our Varputėnai.

Valerija works as a cleaning lady in the shop. She is already retired and is waiting for her first wages to come.

Valerija: I’m taking care of the documents now. And then... They will be dealing with it for a long time in Sodra, so maybe I’ll get it in a year or so. Ha ha. It takes ages for Sodra to process the documents. So I’ll get my pension for the whole year in a year. It’s not gonna be big – I haven’t got 30 years of work experience.

She also says that she would leave for a city if she could.

Valerija: My husband doesn’t want it, he’s a true villager. We get along, what can we do? We grew old together, and will possibly die together. He’s not a bad man, very quiet.
Stankevičius: (Lithuanian idiom) He was a good man but minor things got him into trouble – this is what happens sometimes.

Valerija: It does happen, of course. I like Kaunas. I don’t know why. Feels like a very homey town. Vilnius? No, I find it somehow very confusing, I always get lost there. Kaunas is homey. I like living in a city – there are always things to do... I like it, I like ballet and... I just like the city, it’s more fun. Here it’s all boredom, pure monotony. Same route every morning: barn - home, home - barn.

(Mows the grass)

Valerija is a part-time cleaning lady; she works two hours in the morning and two in the evening. She washes, cleans, arranges the products and mows the grass outside the shop.

Valerija: I will sit at home and rest…What else? I don’t know. I don’t know what you can really do in the village. (Starts running tap water) I will do the same work as I do now, if I can, or if I can’t, I will simply rest. I like the city, but my husband doesn’t want it. I always need to hear the cars humming… I feel sad here. There’s so much traffic there behind the windows. And my mum lives right by the street, right by the main street in Zarasai. There’s always humming, humming and humming and humming … I like it. That street is the main one, you can go everywhere from there, to Šiauliai, to Panevėžys, everywhere… Buses and cars… There are plenty of them.

(Snuffles) When you get used to that kind of traffic… It’s too quiet for me here… (Turns the tap off) He grew up in the countryside and he cares about it, the quietness… (The fridge starts humming and the music starts playing on the radio) I’m very bored at home. Algis goes fishing, he’s fishing today. But what can he do being in a second disability group? That’s the only good thing… He doesn’t need anything anywhere anymore… His joint was replaced, the knee joint. But that’s not why he got his disability status, he only had it for a year because of that leg. Now he’s got Parkinson’s. He is shaking… A rough disease, a horrible disease… But he still moves on, little by little.

Algis gets 700 and I get 368 as takehome pay. Things are expensive for us. But what can we do… We are waiting for a pension... It will come soon... Maybe I will even work if my health allows me to. That’s good these days, when everything is getting more expensive day by day....

Valerija: (from far away) ... In Paris, to buy a weekend in Paris...

Once, while arranging the products, she discovered an advertisement on one of them: buy a weekend in Paris.

Valerija: Always... ha ha ha.

Valerija: I would love to see that Eiffel Tower… Is that what they call it? The Eiffel Tower, yes… I would sightsee everywhere, walk everywhere, it’s so beautiful out there, so beautiful, I have only seen it on TV (sweeps the floor)... What else could I do there? Only look, be amazed by such beauty. Such prettiness... (sweeps, catches on the metal door). Maybe I will never get a chance to go anywhere but straight to Topolinė, ha ha, it’s time to get ready for Topolinė. It’s how they call cemeteries in our Varputėnai...

(Car passes by) Yeah... Dreams, only dreams... But maybe, why not, maybe I will win a million and go to Paris... I have never taken a plane before… It would be a little scary... I imagine it feels like falling into a hole when landing… It’s just my imagination. I would still like to go though. I would like to fly and I would also like, though I’m 60 already, I’d like to do a parachute jump. You see what my dreams are like? Ha Ha. One can dream about anything. Being wealthy one could go anywhere. Everywhere. I’d love to wander around the world.

Ohh… But it won’t fall on me... Not everybody is destined to go somewhere. Just dream for a while and that will do. I always think like that, always something bad, I never think that it can get better. There wasn’t anything good before. What could it be anyway? Only bad things, always disasters... It seems like happiness will never even come at all. You think: hey, you can start living now, but then you hear that he fell down, became disabled. It’s all bad again, he can’t work…

***
(Unpluggs the wires, switches the radio off)

A feature by Viktoras Jakovlevas and Annick Lesage
(The door squeaks)

Sound by Apollo Sillen

The Shop
(The door squeaks again; she locks it, pushes three times)
Virginija: Never say never.
Valerija: Goodnight.
Virginija: OK, goodnight. Thank you for your company, for today. I’m gonna doublecheck if I really locked it. I can’t trust my memory. Need to touch it.